Stage
It's a musty old theater saw that even catastrophic plays can be saved at the last minute. As Shakespeare in Love shrugged, "It's a mystery." Frankly, I'm not a fan of this belief. I always wonder how good the show could have been if it were rehearsed properly all along.
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There we were in Priest Point Park, watching theater that went beyond poor to free, in which actors sped around on all fours like greyhounds. When I heard about Animal Fire Theatre's approach to Macbeth I was skeptical, but it's applied with discretion and wit and it's damn fun to
Stage
It wasn't long into Animal Fire Theatre's outdoor production of Macbeth before I was reminded of Jerzy Grotowski's indispensable book, Towards a Poor Theatre. It's a must-read for any director. Theater can't hope to compete with film in terms of spectacle, so Grotowski argued it should concentrate on writing and
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About a dozen local restaurant chefs will prepare mushroom-based delectables and compete for bragging rights and your attention and patronage. How much will it cost you to sample this orgy of fungal sensuality? Five bucks. Five bucks! Good luck scoring a mushroom high for less, even
Features
A Croatian proverb says, "All mushrooms are edible, but some only once." Thankfully, only about five percent of North American mushrooms are poisonous, with another five percent edible and tasty. (The other 90 percent taste like ... well, what they grow on.) And of course there's our good friend
Stage
One of my earliest memories is reading to my three-years-younger brother Richard. His favorite book was Roald Dahl's 1964 classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, so I must've read it to him four or five times cover to cover. Yet we didn't see the 1971 movie adaptation in theaters. Almost
We Recommend
TAO production of Othello is an able retelling of one of Shakespeare's most plot-driven tragedies with a skilled cast in the hands of a smart director. It boasts technical polish worthy of a much larger, wealthier troupe. It's a nearly flawless production for people who are tired of Shakespeare's Othello. Read
Archives
This is an op-ed piece. It's not the news. You know the news already: We're two and a half months into an ongoing ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, precipitated by an industrial explosion that killed 11 workers and wounded 17 others. Numerous attempts to cap the broken oil
Stage
Before I dig deeper ("For I am nothing, if not critical"), TAO's production of Othello is an able retelling of one of Shakespeare's most plot-driven tragedies with a skilled cast in the hands of a smart director. It boasts technical polish worthy of a much larger, wealthier troupe. I say
Stage
A dozen beautiful women in colorful, flesh-baring harem costumes swayed and undulated as the appreciative crowd cheered them in Turkish and Arabic. The air was filled with trills of ululation. One richly tattooed woman danced in bare feet on stemmed water glasses. Other beauties swirled around each other gracefully while
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Properly speaking, Harlequin Productions' Sixties Kicks isn't musical theater, it's a concert. Five talented young people backed by a killer five-piece rock band sing 37 hits of the 1960s. I'm not a music critic, but I don't have to be Lester Bangs to give
Stage
Properly speaking, Harlequin Productions' Sixties Kicks isn't musical theater, it's a concert. Five talented young people backed by a killer five-piece rock band sing 37 hits of the 1960s. I'm not a music critic, but I don't have to be Lester Bangs to give a thumbs-up to the source material. In
Arts
The 20th season of Harlequin Productions in Olympia begins this winter, so it was a fine time to sit with founding members Scot and Linda Whitney for a look back. What began as a fairly routine interview morphed into a fascinating conversation about one of theater's most daunting ongoing challenges:
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Neil Simon's Plaza Suite debuted in 1968, four months before I was born, so it was probably inevitable that I found myself contemplating the passage of time as I watched Olympia Little Theatre's revival. In three acts, each of which take place in Suite 719 of the
Stage
Neil Simon's Plaza Suite debuted in 1968, four months before I was born, so it was probably inevitable that I found myself contemplating the passage of time as I watched Olympia Little Theatre's revival. In three acts, each of which take place in Suite 719 of the Plaza Hotel in
Archives
Nigel Tufnel: What's wrong wif bein' sexy?Ian Faith: Sex-ist! - This Is Spinal Tap Is it OK to be postfeminist yet, or is Western culture still too enslaved by the Patriarchy? Have we evolved out of feminist Defcon Five? What if I'm a man? Can I be postfeminist, or is it
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I can question like: What is it? If you just chanted, "Verb, you're so demanding," then you're probably in your late 30s or early 40s. I'm referring, of course, to a lyric from the most dynamic installment of Schoolhouse Rock!, a series of edu-taining cartoon shorts aired between
Stage
I can question like: What is it? If you just chanted, "Verb, you're so demanding," then you're probably in your late 30s or early 40s. I'm referring, of course, to a lyric from the most dynamic installment of Schoolhouse Rock!, a series of edu-taining cartoon shorts aired between Saturday morning commercials
Archives
"The Tea Party Movement Is a National Embarrassment." That was Stuart Whatley's assessment on the Huffington Post. "It is loud, passionate, and generally unconcerned with pesky things like facts or reasoned, practical solutions to the country's problems." Meghan McCain accused the movement of "innate racism." Bill Maher, never one to
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"What's your deal?" one wounded character asks another in Israel Horovitz's Six Hotels, currently making its West Coast premiere at Harlequin Productions in Olympia. It's an apt tag line for Six Hotels, a disparate collection of one-act plays. If this anthology has any single uniting theme, it's the exposure